Saturday, June 9, 2012

CERN has confirmed that a shock result from its Gran Sasso Laboratory was indeed the result of a mechanical error.

The group said that re-tests have confirmed that a faulty piece of fibre-optic hardware caused the OPERA experiment to suggest that neutrinos could be accelerated to velocities beyond the speed of light.

Upon re-examination, a set of four different experiments all found that neutrinos did, in fact travel at the speed of light. The findings re-affirm Einstein's assertions that faster-than-light travel is not possible.

"Although this result isn’t as exciting as some would have liked, it is what we all expected deep down," said CERN research director Sergio Bertolucci.

"The story captured the public imagination, and has given people the opportunity to see the scientific method in action, an unexpected result was put up for scrutiny, thoroughly investigated and resolved in part thanks to collaboration between normally competing experiments." Read More